Bayume Mohamed Husen
Bayume Mohamed Husen | |
---|---|
Born | 22 February 1904 |
Died | 24 November 1944 | (aged 40)
Occupation(s) | Actor, soldier |
Years active | 1904-1944 |
Spouse | Maria Schwandner |
Bayume Mohamed Husen (born Mahjub bin Adam Mohamed; 22 February 1904 – 24 November 1944) was an Afro-German soldier, actor and victim of Nazi persecution.
Husen, the son of a former
His life was the subject of a 2007 biography and a 2014 documentary film.
Background
Husen was born in
After the War, Husen worked as a "boy(servant)" on various cruise ships and worked as a waiter with a
He married a
Role in the German neo-colonialist movement
In 1934, Husen applied without success for the "Frontkämpfer-Abzeichen", the front-line veterans' Honour Cross. The German authorities were not willing to bestow the order upon "coloureds" in general, and Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck appeared to have explicitly ruled out the case of Husen in a letter to the foreign office. Husen nevertheless wore the badge and an askari uniform which he probably bought from a military supplies dealer during his participation in rallies of the German neo-colonialist movement , which sought to reclaim Germany's lost colonies.[7]
Whether he had received or lost German citizenship at all is not clear.[7][8] It was common practice in Weimar Germany to provide migrants from the former German colonies with a passport carrying an endorsement "Deutscher Schutzbefohlener“ (German Protegee) which didn't give them full citizenship. After Hitler's rise to power, black Germans from the former colonies were often deemed to be nationals of the state that had succeeded Germany as the relevant colonial power under the Treaty of Versailles.[9] As in the case of Hans Massaquoi, there was no level of discrimination against black Germans comparable to the systematic hatred the Jewish minority faced.
Various assignments in Nazi Germany
In 1934, Husen briefly returned to
In 1936, Husen joined the
After the British and French declaration of war against Germany in 1939, Husen asked to be accepted in the Wehrmacht but his admission was denied.[12] From 1939 to 1941, Husen appeared in at least 23 German films, generally as an extra or in minor speaking roles. His last and most prominent role was that of Ramasan, the native guide of German colonial leader Carl Peters in the 1941 film of the same name. He stopped working for the university in April 1941, allegedly after being mistreated by Prof Martin Heepe , an Africanist and linguistic expert.[4] While on set, he engaged in an affair with a German woman and was reported to the authorities.
Husen was arrested by the Gestapo on a charge of racial defilement and detained without trial in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp where he died in 1944.[10]
Legacy
A 2007 biography by Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst made Husen's life known to a wider German public, and the artist Gunter Demnig installed a stolperstein memorial stone for Husen in front of his former apartment in Berlin.
His life is the subject of the 2014 documentary film, Majubs Reise by Eva Knopf.[13][14]
Filmography
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1934 | The Riders of German East Africa | Signalschüler Mustapha | |
1937 | To New Shores | Diener des Gouverneurs | |
1938 | Schüsse in Kabine 7 | ||
1938 | Faded Melody | Ein Zeitungsverkäufer in New York | |
1938 | Five Million Look for an Heir | Liftboy | |
1938 | The Impossible Mister Pitt | Kameltreiber | |
1938 | Eine Frau kommt in die Tropen | Servant | |
1938 | Sergeant Berry | Uncredited | |
1939 | Men Are That Way | Ein Gast im Lokal | |
1939 | Congo Express | Farm worker | |
1940 | The Star of Rio | ||
1941 | Carl Peters | Ramasan | |
1941 | Pedro Will Hang | Pfleger | (final film role) |
References
- ^ "Tod eines "treuen Askari" im KZ Sachsenhausen" (in German). Deutschlandfunk. Retrieved 16 November 2014.
- ISBN 978-3-86153-451-8, S. 29-37 .
- ^ Bechhaus-Gerst (2007), S. 52f.
- ^ a b Bechhaus-Gerst (2007), p. 139
- ^ Mendrala, Jon (14 September 2007). "Ein vergessener Deutscher". Die Tageszeitung (in German). Retrieved 16 November 2014.
- ^ Bechhaus-Gerst (2007), p. 70, 152.
- ^ a b Bechhaus-Gerst (2007), p. 96ff.
- ISBN 0415932955.
- ^ Marianne Bechhaus-Geerst, Schwarze Deutsche, Afrikanerinnen und Afrikaner im NS-Staat. In: Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst & Reinhard Klein-Arendt, Afrikanerinnen in Deutschland und Schwarze Deutsche - Geschichte und Gegenwart, Münster 2003, p. 187-196, p. 188-189.
- ^ a b "Afrika in Berlin" (in German). Deutsches Historisches Museum. Retrieved 16 November 2014.
- ^ Sippel, Harald: Kolonialverwaltung ohne Kolonien – Das Kolonialpolitische Amt der NSDAP und das geplante Reichskolonialministerium, in: Van der Heyden, Ulrich / Zeller, Joachim (Hrsg.): Kolonialmetropole Berlin. Eine Spurensuche. Berlin 2002. S. 412
- ^ Bechhaus-Gerst (2007), p. 136
- ^ Schwarzer, Anke (12 April 2014). "Mehr als ein Statist". Die Zeit (in German). Retrieved 16 November 2014.
- ^ Sandhu, Sukhdev (13 November 2014). "Mohamed Husen: the black immigrant actor who carved out a career in 1930s German cinema". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 November 2014.
Bibliography
- Bechhaus-Gerst, Marianne (2007). Treu bis in den Tod: von Deutsch-Ostafrika nach Sachsenhausen. Eine Lebensgeschichte. Berlin: Links. ISBN 978-3-86153-451-8.
External links
- Mohamed Husen at IMDb